When I have too much to say, I have no listener. It becomes immensely difficult for a talkative me to keep my thoughts to myself. I have to express it and this happens to be an ideal platform for me to do so.

Disclaimer: This post does not intend spreading communal disharmony. This is just a fun post and should be taken in the right spirit. Any offence to any community is NOT regretted.

Two days back, my Facebook status spoke about how the older generation south Indian community was obsessed with the name Lakshmi. Only the prefix was different, otherwise every second lady was a Lakshmi.

And it is not just the south indian community. Every Indian community had a peculiar way of naming the kids. I would not say that everybody followed this trend. But majority people did follow this trend.

The current generation does an extensive research to give an exotic name to their kid (devoid
of any peculiar nomenclature trend), but my generation and the previous
generations were a victim of this trend.

Just for fun, here's a guide on how you can recognize the community of the person through their name / surname.

You know you are speaking to a South Indian when...

There is an unnecessary 'h' after 't' in the name. So, I am gayatHri not gayatri. Similarly, one of my friend's name is pritHi not priti. So if you see someone writing their name as Amith, Sunitha, Shruthi and so on, you know to which community they belong.

Note: Don't just go and flaunt your tamil in front of them, they could also be Kannada, Telugu, or Malayalam.

You know you are speaking to a Gujarati when...

The girl's name ends with the sound 'al'. So the next time you come across names such as Jinal, Minal, Sonal, Hetal, Dimple, you know who they are. Similarly, if you come across names like Chetan, Ketan, Jinesh and Jignesh, you can safely consider them to be a Gujarati.Also the suffix bhai and ben is an indicator, best examples are: Dhirubhai, Kokilaben.

Hint: If you are able to find a gujarati using this tip, and if the person becomes friendly with you, dont forget to call me when they bring aamras puri for you.

You know the opposite person is a Sikh when...

The name ends with a Kaur / Singh. Punjabi sikh names are unisex in nature. So both a man or a woman can be Gurpreet, Manpreet and so on. Now if you come face to face with them, you don't have to put much efforts in knowing if the person is a man or a woman. But if you are sending an e-mail to the person and if you are wondering how to address them, all you need to do is check if the name ends with a Kaur or Singh. So if the e-mail id says Manpreetkaur, it's a woman and if it is Manpreet Singh, it's a man.

Note: I love parathas too... so you know what to do if this tip works for you!

You know you are speaking to a Maharashtrian when...

Ok Maharashtrians don't have a peculiar trend in naming the kids. But often their surname is an indicator. Usually maharashtrian surnames end with 'kar'. So if you come across as a Mageshkar, Patkar, Tendulkar, Parmekar, Toraskar, you know you are speaking to a Maharashtrian.

Note: Karmarkar, I am told is Bengali surname and not a Maharashtrian surname. So yeah this is not a fool-proof method. In case, if they do turn out to be a Maharashtrian, don't forget to ask for puran poli.

There are many more, but my blog would run out of space. So I will end here.

A myth-buster: Don't assume that a surname, which ends with 'ani' is Sindhi. They can be a Kutchi or a Gujarati.

About me

Hi, i am Gayathri Vishwanathan. No not even distantly related to Vishwanathan Anand.
Wanted to be a journalist, but ended up in a usual corporate job.
Mundane activities of life take up my time, and when I reach my saturation point, I try to calm myself either by listening to music or through writing.
Let me warn you, my blogs are nothing like what others write, it is boring and sometimes tiresome (not to forget the thousands of spelling and grammatical errors I make), however I write with the intention to express myself and to strike a personal chord with everyone who reads this blog.
Hope to see you here baar baar lagataar :)